Mexico One Plate at a Time
Rick Bayless Mexico One Plate At A Time is the companion book to the 26-part public television series, “Mexico One Plate At A Time.”
The following is a review from Amazon.com:
Rick Bayless is Mexican cooking’s great American voice. An award-winning chef and author of bestselling Mexican cookbooks like Authentic Mexican, he’s found a way to present honest recipes in a friendly, relaxed fashion that nonetheless touches every technical base. One Plate at a Time takes his approach a step further. Bayless offers more than 120 recipes, providing traditional versions of much-loved classics like Green Chile Chicken Tamales, modern renditions of the basic repertoire, and dish “anatomies.” These detail what a given dish should taste and look like, when it’s best served, and how American cooks should approach its preparation. This goof-proof strategy will appeal to old cooking hands and culinary gringos alike.
Ranging from soups and starters to entrees, light meals, desserts, and drinks, the chapters present a wide range of dishes, from the simple (such as guacamole, updated with roasted poblanos, garlic, and tomatoes) to the more complex (a classic red mole with turkey, for one, followed by Roasted Cornish Game Hens with Apricot-Pine Nut Mole). Other winning recipes include Seafood in Mojo de Ajo (with toasted, slow-cooked garlic), Smoky Chipotle Beans with Wilted Spinach and Masa “Gnocchi,” and, for dessert, a definitive vanilla flan with instructions for preparing it in three versions: light, creamy, and rich. Throughout, recipes are followed by paragraph-long “postmortems” (is Mexican vanilla worth searching out, for instance) that further extend reader understanding. With 32 pages of color photos and an extensive glossary, the book is an inspired place to start or continue a Mexican cooking journey.
- Arthur Boehm
My review of Mexico One Plate at a Time – I like this book but with some reservations. First let me say that I think you can do much worse than picking up a Rick Bayless book. Any one of his titles are worth the money. He certainly knows what he teaches and it shows. His love of Mexican cuisine and culture is more than apparent and is reflective in all his books.
One of the things I really like about Mexico One Plate At A Time is the question and answer section at the end of every “plate.” Questions like: What cheeses are best for quesadillas? Are really full tacos better than ones with less filling? What tortillas make the best chips for chilaquiles? What is the right tortilla for frying into a tostada? It seems like we always have questions when following a recipe and Mr. Bayless has done a good job anticipating and answering the very questions we would ask.
My biggest complaint with Mexico One Plate at a Time is it seems like many of the recipes are just too time intensive. If you work all day and think you’re going to go home, copy a recipe out of this book, and whip something together in 20 or 30 minutes, …well, that’s just not going to happen.
I think Mr. Bayless realized and could appreciate this about his book as every plate has a “working ahead” section. Working Ahead is a paragraph or two at the end of every plate which gives suggestions on what can be made a day or two ahead of time and how it should be stored, etc. A nice feature but I would prefer recipes that just didn’t take so long to pull together. But that’s just me.
This is a nice book. And as I said earlier, you just can’t go too wrong buying any Rick Bayless title. But if you’re looking for quick, easy, and ready in 10 minutes, then this probably isn’t the book for you as many of the recipes are a bit more involved. They are not hard and only for the experienced cook nor do they take all day, but 5 or 10 minute quickie meals they are not.
In this video, Rick Bayless, author of Mexico One Plate At A Time, discusses and shares his tips for making guacamole.